The Earth Opened Its Mouth and Swallowed Them
by halfreks
Summary: Bloody and broken, they trudge home from the war. / Twenty-four people who could have been victors.


**01**

You're forgettable.

You hear the explosion from a mile away, feel it in your boots, taste it in your mouth. What you almost miss is Clove's scream, but you catch it in there, amongst the commotion.

Boom. Boom. Cato and Clove. Dead, dead, dead.

So it's all you now, Marvel.

The little girl is an easy kill. Katniss Everdeen is harder to catch. She almost gets you, too (it's barely a scratch, really, you chuckle at Caesar) but then your spear is in her flesh, and it's a satisfying sound, a beautiful colour.

You know, you've never really appreciated _red_.

Lover Boy dies, soon enough. Probably natural, though you never do quite find out. Maybe another tribute finished him off. You'd bet on the Big Guy from 11. He's your biggest competitor, in the end.

You wait, for them to pick each other off. And unlike Cato, you can climb a fucking tree. It's a little thing called stealth, you think, you've got it all, boy from 1, even the dazzling smile that'll let them forget you murdered other children.

It takes an arrow to the heart to finish 11 off. Glimmer's arrow. Katniss' arrow. Quick. Bloody.

Victory.

You shock the Capitol with this. Half of them forgot your name. Too focused on dizzy dresses and silly crushes to remember someone like you.

Maybe that's why you won.

/

 **01**

"You'll do well," he says, fingers tap, tap, tapping the edge of your cheeks, (and will he stop that noise, or you're going to murder something, swear to god - ) smile taking over his face. "I'm sure."

"Do well for what?" But you already know, don't you? You're not stupid - not as ditzy as they made you out to be, like some dizzy dumb blonde, some dizzy dumb blonde who managed to kill them all.

Their eyes had trailed lines up your skirt and across your chest, never into your head, never into what was lurking there. Spiders and snakes and all things creepy, crawly, darkness, darkness -

It's a recent development, you think. You're like before, (it's a bit of a blur, you see, messed up and torn apart then stitched back together again) when you were the innocent one. Giggled your way through the interviews, flashed a bit of thigh, maybe, that was the naughtiest thing you'd ever done (besides, you chuckle, teeth biting down until your cheek tastes like copper, besides getting reaped of course) but people change, don't you understand?

Don't you, don't you, don't you?

Tap. Tap. Tap. "I was impressed, Glimmer."

He traces a light line under your eyes. You blink. Once. Twice. Three times. There's just something about the number three, you know, something safe.

"I didn't think you'd survive all that venom."

And the nightmares come rushing back, the hallucinations, the sting, sting, stinging, and you're dying again -

"But I'd say it made you stronger, wouldn't you?"

Blood. Cato. Clove. Marvel. They never saw it coming, and you laughed your head off, because they thought you were stupid. And 12 came to join the party, but you shot her too, didn't you? Shot her with silver arrows, until she screamed, and they took you away on the hovercraft, away to freedom.

"You'll do well indeed."

/

 **02**

You throw them to the wolves. Mutts. For what they did to Glimmer. To Marvel.

To -

There's this crunch, when Katniss Everdeen dies (or doesn't, you sit there for hours, waiting) that you relish. It's like Heaven, really. Retribution. Revenge. Just watching her be torn apart, well, you don't even mind how long it takes.

People bet on you.

Of course, you know they're disappointed. The Capitol love an underdog. Katniss and Bread-Boy were their favourite little couple, star-crossed-lovers and all that fairytale-bullshit.

They'll forget about it.

Winning isn't a surprise. It's why you volunteered. Why anyone does, really.

But the killing - you never expected to like it quite as much as you do. With Thresh, you drew it out. Made him pay. For Clove. For what could have been. For what is, and will forever be.

A rock to the head. Seems short. Too quick. Too...conclusive.

You didn't get there in time, did you Cato? You could have won together, you know. Sad, really. Is that why you're lashing out?

The Capitol will forget about it. About the love that could never have been, about Bread Boy and his vomit-inducing interview, and worst, worst of all, they'll forget her. You won't. You'll never.

They'll forget you, in the end. Just another Victor. Nothing special, nothing as big as they made you out to be.

They'll forget Katniss. They'll forget the girl they made out to be a hero.

There are no heroes in the Hunger Games.

/

 **02**

This rule has been revoked.

You throw your knife at Cato before he even has time to think. For the first time, you cringe at the sound, at the little gasp of air, before he stumbles.

"I'm sorry," you say. "I didn't mean it."

Didn't you?

He would have done the same. He would have killed you in a heartbeat. You just did it in half of one. He would have done the same.

You have a family, back home, a little sister (like lover-girl, but you didn't milk it) and you miss your friends. The people you love more than anything, no matter how much everyone said you can't. Can't love. That's what they say, all your training, your whole angle. Clove: machine-girl, robot-heart and glassy eyes. Too unemotional, too fucking detached, not flowers and chocolates like proper girls should be.

Murder, murder, murder. No time for romance when you're in the games! Not with him, no, especially not with him.

Cato looks up at you now, eyes sorrowful. The way he looked at you before, (way back when, before the reaping, before everything) it was like you were an angel. You didn't like that. You liked to play in the dark.

He doesn't say anything. Maybe he's dead, but there's been no cannon and who knows if your aim was altogether accurate?

(it always is, you think, as the sound of breathing gently stops)

You apologise again, but your words have become hollow. If you could have won - together -

If. But.

Oh Clove, nobody wins the Hunger Games!

/

 **03**

You rig the mines.

Silly little boy from three, with the name nobody ever bothers to get right (not Cato, he doesn't even try) how they underestimate you.

"I'll hunt," you say, and none of them question the fact that they've already got food - a whole cornucopia full, in fact, and just let you go. Sitting around, waiting for Everdeen to play the fool - that's got their attention. Not you.

You aren't really a spotlight sort of person, are you?

3\. 2. 1.

You get maybe a mile or two out of the way. That's playing it safe. You listen in, though. It's a satisfactory sound. The explosion of the mines almost harmonises with the boom of the cannons. Music to your ears.

You count one, two, three, four, five and smile.

Their faces appear in the sky that night. Cato. Clove. Girl-from-five. Marvel. Katniss.

All the real competition. Gone. Just like that.

They'll praise you, later on, for your ingenuity. The art of murder, you think they call it. The Capitol, at it's finest, ladies and gentleman. Take a fucking bow.

But all their faces change. It used to be annoyance, ignorance, pity, even. Nobody thought you would win. Nobody wanted you to. Now, they look at you like you're a big bad wolf and they're the lamb to your slaughter.

And god, don't you love it?

/

 **03**

Killers. You're all killers, that what they say. What they think, anyway, when they're not shaking your hands and paying to fuck you. All the victors - murderers, except you didn't kill anyone, you just ran and hid and survived and you didn't want them to die but they did and it wasn't your fault and -

Morphling. They call it morphling.

All of a sudden, you float on clouds, clouds that are fluffier than those dresses they stuff you into, clouds that help you forget. You don't even feel it when they shove themselves into you, don't acknowledge the rough, bruising hands, because you're floating.

They don't come often. You're not pretty like the other Victors. One supposes Snow would have preferred the girl from 1 to win, she had a far more attractive physique. You're surprised they didn't interfere, toward the end. Caused an explosion or something, so they would have had their typical little white-knight, perfect-hero Champion.

Instead, they were landed with you.

But the morphling, the morphling makes you shine. The whole world _glows_ , even the dirty fuckers who want to screw a messed up morph-head, who want the pleasure of the latest Victor. They leave as quick as they come and by god, if that's not the filthy, forsaken truth.

And you wake up with bruises that don't hurt. They cover them with concealer, anyway. Go back to your family and lie.

It's called morphling and oh, it feels even better than pretending.

/

 **04**

Cato should've let his girlfriend do it.

Slitting throats seems like a relatively simple thing to accomplish, so you're a little shocked when you, you know, don't die. Can't fucking move though. On your back, eyes closed, waiting for Heaven, waiting for Hell.

You don't know how long you're there for. You count the time by the booms of the cannon, but you lose track of them, eventually. Days and days, that feel like years, that feel like pain.

And then, light.

They patch up your neck. Give you some drugs, make sure your guts don't fall out. They inform you that you won the Hunger Games and well whoop-de-doo for you.

Probably the least eventful win yet.

You can't tell if you're alive, or if this is some kind of fucked-up alternate universe you've conjured up in your dying moments. They convince you it's the former and you throw up, on the first night. Doctors 'fix' this with medication. You enquire after your games - the games you completely missed, the games you somehow won.

They show you the tapes and beam away. "The last time a thing like this happened," they tell you, "is the 23rd games. It's really a shocker. A lot of people lost a lot of money."

You understand. You wouldn't have bet on the nearly-dead boy either, hanging on by pieces of thread and broken sewing needles. But they picked each other off like animals, all rotting carcasses and sharp, sharp claws and so you're alive, for some reason, dreadfully, wonderfully alive. That's the goal of the Hunger Games, isn't it?

Home. You think about it for a while, during the hospital-procedure, about your mum and your dad and your baby brother, all your family...together. They wouldn't have thought you'd win, but you did, you did and now you're going home.

/

 **04**

"Alice." His smile is all glitter and charm, just as you remember it, though that seems an age ago now. The Interviews. You can't even remember what you said. Some bullshit about family and friends and love and honour, probably. Caesar gives you that award-winning beam and honestly? You sort of want to rip it from his face. "I think we were all very pleased when you won."

Well. That's a fucking pack of lies. They wanted the girl-on-fire, all of them did, or maybe Cato, for his looks and charming personality. "I'm glad, Caesar." No. You aren't. You're sick of pink dresses and pretending, of speeches and remembering. "I was pleased, too."

Oh, how they all laugh. Like hyenas, swallowing every word you say. Ravenous applause, of course. They love the jokes, because it helps them forget the blood of the innocents. The ones they slaughtered, slaughtered and mocked.

"Now the tracker jackers - " Fuck. You didn't want to talk about that. You don't want to go back, back to -

"I know, right!" You force a queasy grin onto your face and keep talking. It's a charade. That's what Finnick told you. And if you slip, even for one second, there are consequences. "I was so scared."

"And Glimmer?"

Glimmer, dead on the floor, face half ripped off, Glimmer's eyes looking at you, hands reaching out, reaching out -

"She was a great tribute." A brutal murderer, like you, like all of you.

Some of the crowd start to well up, for their fallen princess. For the girl they wanted to fuck, for the girl they forced into destruction. It's like a bomb, the Hunger a Games. It blows up and takes everything with it, shatters it all to pieces.

You just keep smiling.

/

 **05**

You come home.

They tell you they knew you'd win. Your father bet on the District Two Girl and your mother practically held a candlelight vigil when you got reaped, but it doesn't matter, no, no, you laugh, no, it doesn't, not at all. You pick up your little sister, swing her around (like old times, you know?) and you're happy. Yes, yes, happy. At least you're not dead! Right, not dead. Perfectly alive and well, apart from a few scrapes and bruises. None that can't be fixed!

People who get reaped go to hell once they die.

Somebody told you that once. You add it to the list of Things To Be Thankful For; not being in hell. It's a wonderful life, isn't it?

Your girlfriend doesn't look you in the eye, because she fucked the boy from down the road. Marcus-from-school tells you one day, out of the blue, with an anxious face and guilty green eyes. She didn't mean it though, no, of course she didn't mean it. Nobody ever means anything, that's what you say. You said it before, too and maybe you're returning. Yes, yes, returning. Good, good, finally.

Go to school. Kiss your girlfriend. Laugh with your friends. You live in a Victor's house now, you're splashing out the money, on parties, on the poor people down in the streets (see, you're a nice guy, totally fine, charitable, even!) and providing for your family. Your mother's quit her job because it was making her sick and you've got enough to send her to hospital. Really, the Hunger Games improved your life, not ruined it!

Improved, right, yes, yes, yes -

You see them in your dreams sometimes, all red and bloody and you killed them, yes you did, one, two, three. Only to survive, all to live, nothing else, because you're a good person. With a family and friends and charity and, and -

Hell! Once you die! By god, you laugh, laugh and you can't stop laughing, you're already _there_!

/

 **05**

The train ticks onward.

You're almost there, you've worked out, just over four hours to go. It's quite simple, really, you know the position and the speed of the train and from there it clicks in your head until you have the answer.

You're smart like that. It's how you won.

No, your mind reasons, you won because you left them all to the Mutts like a cold-blooded killer and ran away until they were all dead. Makes more sense, doesn't it? Luck, luck, more luck, nothing clever about it.

Your mentor - in whispers and between-moments, because they're not supposed to talk about things like this - mentions forgetting.

"I've got a photographic memory," you say in response, because you're not sure what else there is and it's never the right thing, never ever. He slinks away, like he's disappointed and maybe like he's scared, but it's true. You do. That's all you wanted to say, the truth.

And you can still hear their screams at night, sometimes, in technicolor (sounds aren't supposed to be visual, you think crossly to yourself, but they sort of are, in a way) piercing and sharp, melancholic.

There's a girl back home you're in love with, but she likes a boy, a nice, normal boy who didn't win the Hunger Games and there's a dozen or so books to read, but they've all been twisted and manipulated. You still have your family, of course, but you know what will happen to them (through word of mouth, whispers and rumours) if you don't play as Snow's puppet.

You didn't eat the berries. You've never been a fool - you know your nightlock from your cranberry - you studied them, read the books until your eyes bled.

You put them down and decided that suicide would be cowardly. It's something you read, once. You still don't quite understand it.

You didn't eat the berries. But, you think to yourself sadly - the train ticks onward - sometimes, sometimes, you wish you had.

/

 **06**

Girls used to fall at your feet.

You say 'used to' because they still do, but they're from the Capitol now, not District 6. And they're not girls, no, not really, they're women. Five, six, ten, twenty years older than you, sometimes they surpass even that. You don't mind, really, because out of all the horrors you've faced recently, a little attention is nothing serious, but the girls back home don't touch you for a reason.

It's about two months since the games when he asks you.

He says it's only a date. Only an escort, just a silly little Capitol thing, like all the others you've been attending.

You agree, because the woman is pretty (if she is a bit extravagant, all pink hair and puffy dresses) and it doesn't sound too exhausting. You're putting off seeing your family, after all, because they don't love you like they did, they look at you with sympathy now and empathy you don't deserve. Maybe later, maybe after the date, you'll go back home and everything will be magically fine again, maybe the Hunger Games will have never even existed.

So you go. The music is loud and the people are obnoxious; including your date, who breeds mutts for a living ("I want to make them as stylish as possible, darling," she says, "there's no point in having a killing machine if it's not fashionable.") but you dance and you laugh, stuff yourself with food, have a good time, as is expected.

People in 6 would murder for something like this, but you push that thought to the back of your head.

Everybody starts to leave.

You're relieved now, really, because it's all a little hectic and you honestly just want to go to bed.

You give her a goodbye kiss, because you're a gentleman and she probably wanted something like that, but as you do, her hand slips. Down. Down. Down, until you drag her away and you've realised now, what 'date' means.

"Fuck off," you say firmly, "I would never - "

Never, never. Never what?

She looks upset, upset and confused, maybe a little bit of anger mixed in. "President Snow said - "

"I'm not his fucking toy," and maybe this is liberation, maybe this is war, rebellion, because nobody told you it was going to be like this, but you've refused and it's as simple as that, really -

You go home to 6 and don't think about consequences.

(they put two bullets in your father's brain and you lose your virginity the very next day)

/

 **06**

You don't fuck the Capitol citizens, no - they don't pay for you, dear, you're not pretty or popular and for that you're glad - no, you fuck the other Victors, because they're insecurity and secrets, all the things that you love.

Girls too, (except they're not girls, really, the Games don't breed children) because the Capitol doesn't care for gender, no matter how much they pretend with their fancy man-woman weddings and blue and pink motifs.

They whisper in your ear and nearly-cry when they leave, because they've - well, most of them, some of them did refuse Snow's darling proposal - done this a thousand or so times, with a flock of different people and it doesn't get any better, even when it's only you.

(and whoever heard of fucking for pleasure?)

You get to know them all quite well, of course, it's rather an interesting little business you've got set up, (better than Finnick Odair's, perhaps, because you have at least some freedom in the manner) a trade, perhaps, of knowledge and the pursuit of it. Enobaria - for example - you come to understand, (as she traces your throat ever so lightly with her teeth, but doesn't quite bite down) lost a brother to the games and Johanna Mason (who is quite the entertainer, you'd say) has nobody left that she loves.

That's not quite uncommon, you've found, but then again, a lot seem to like the ideas of love and protection. That's why they play the game, of course, Snow's game.

(Finnick Odair is the first person to refuse you and that's when you work out that he has a girl - it's not until you fuck Johanna that you realise it's Annie Cresta - and you never quite saw it coming, because Victors aren't the sort of people who buy into romance)

Love and protection are good and well (you have a family back home, after all and you do care for them quite a bit) but they're rather boring. It's marching to the beat of somebody else's drum; if the march required you fucked people for money and killed a dozen other kids. No, you live your own life, for you, for nobody else, because you don't care, you don't.

You live and it's not good, it's not great, it's not some fucking enlightening thing that it's supposed to be (happiness doesn't exist in panem, maybe, you think) but it's living. You guess. Or sort of, anyway.

The Hunger Games go on, children keep on dying. It's a cycle, unbroken, forever and nobody (nobody who knows what's good for them, anyway) says anything about it.

And there's a good deal in secrets, you've come to learn.

/

 **07**

"Fuck this," you scream into the air, take a mocking bow for the Capitol, "fuck all of this, and fuck all of you."

They send the hovercraft to get you and cut out the cameras. They might as well kill you on the way.

Nobody airs the original Flickerman interview, because it's laced with profanities and acts of treason that break about a thousand rules, they cut out the good parts and replace them with you nodding your head, the times you got closest to a smile, you snatching the crown from Snow's hand.

(worst of all, they take the 'fuck the Capitol' and make it into 'I thank the Capitol,' with some impressive editing and a fake smile from Caesar)

"It's bullshit," Johanna tells you once you're out of there, "it's not going to work."

You ignore her advice. She doesn't matter, anyway, does she? It's all up to you now, because you're a natural born killer (it's why you won, isn't it?) and fate, fate, the destiny of everything, it lies in your hands.

("Shape the future," your father told you, when you were young. They killed him when you were six, because he was a rebel and he wasn't strong enough to defeat them. Not like you. You will be.)

Snow meets with you, of course, but you've been expecting that. The idle threats, slipped into the conversation. The shake of the head and subtle promise to destroy you. You've angered him. It was your goal, after all.

"You're playing a very dangerous game," he says, predictably, in that slow, dripping voice of his, "think about your family perhaps," he laughs, "and know, Mr McClair, that I am everywhere."

You take out your gun and fire.

(one, two, three and he hits the ground - oh what fun!)

They replace Snow with his deputy (but it doesn't matter, it doesn't because he was a villain too, just not the greatest one) and execute your family by firing squad. For the irony, you suppose, as you watch them fall down dead. There's a sharp pang in your chest - it was your fault, your fault - but not a great one, not regret (at least,' you think to yourself, at least your brother and sister never had to be in the games) or guilt, just sorrow. Only sorrow.

They hang you in the centre of District 7, with a sad smile on your face and a wave to the people. Nobody ever takes the body down. This is what happens, your body says, this is how things go. They make an example of you.

(but there'll be a revolution anyway)

/

 **07**

They call it nightlock.

(it tastes good, you think sweetly, humming the tune the forest workers used to whistle, it tastes like forgetting)

/

 **08**

The reapings come quicker than you expected.

The twist, they've announced - because they loved the girl from 12 until she had her flesh ripped off - is that they'll be brother and sister. Dirty fucking bastards, you think, but you don't voice the thoughts aloud, because everybody knows what'll happen if you do. What always happens.

It gets worse and worse each year, but nobody ever says anything. They pick two people from glass balls and let the destruction continue.

Their names are Lucille and Pepper and you, well, you'll be the one leading them into battle.

The little boy is twelve. He cries when they call his name and you wish you'd never won. The word bloodbath lingers on the back of your tongue, guilty and sick and twisted, snap, snap, snap and you very nearly throw up at the thought.

The girl might have a fighting chance - she reminds you of a career, almost, with those hungry eyes - because she's eighteen and well-fed, sharp-looking and stony-faced. That's what it takes to survive.

She's four years older than you and you'll be the one teaching her how to save her own life. Or thereabouts.

He likes the colour red. She doesn't know how to tie a shoelace. They love each other like siblings do, brutal, but affectionate and neither of them wants to die. But they will, at least one of them, because that's how the rules go and nobody in the Capitol knows how to fucking feel.

Pepper wants to be a baker, when he's all grown up.

He's the second to die in the games. The girl from 1 stabs him to death barely seconds into it. His lips are nearly-blue, his body bloody and red and they carry him away in the hovercraft, as if he meant nothing to anybody, ever.

("It gets easier," Wiress tells you. You throw up anyway.)

Lucille strangles her, in the end, for her brother's murder. You can't deny the sick satisfaction you get watching it, knuckles clenched white, hoping she'll make it out, because there's four of them left, now, not too many to go and you don't think you would be able to stand it if she lost.

Four. Three. Two.

She crushes the boy from 4's head with a rock. Her eyes are wild, grief-stricken and you take it back, you take it back. She shouldn't have won, she shouldn't have, no, nobody should have won, nobody -

"Second Victor from 8 in a row!" the Capitol crow from their news stations. Her face is ashen, her words are short. Next year, she'll be a mentor, like you.

Sometimes at night, you wonder why they call it winning.

/

 **08**

You build up your fire and wait.

'You're only thirteen,' your mentor had said bluntly, 'there's no chance of survival.'

And all you had done was smile.

You watched the past games on the train. Your method is a little unusual, sure, but it's taken from past Victors. Look! You're already preparing your winning interview, how darling is that?

("You're a cutie," Caesar had patted you on the head like you were five, "I hope you do well.")

Plants are good for certain things, like wood and timber. Sometimes, you think that maybe you should have been born in District 7, or District 11, but - as you tell the crowd when you win - you'd never abandon District 8, not really. Plants are good for certain things, sort of like you in that regard.

There's a 'stomp, stomp, stomp,' of Career feet and you run like hell.

The hovercraft comes for the bodies in the morning, (so blackened and charred it's hard to distinguish) all seven of them, including the star-crossed lovers and the big boy from 2, the main competition. Tragic, really, you think, (in between the laugh at the thought of 'girl-on-fire,') death by fire. One of the worst ways to go, apparently.

No idea how it happened, of course, or all the other flames after that, (it's easy to start them, there's a knack to it, a plant that sets them really burning) none whatsoever.

Fire is catching, after all.

(or so you've heard)

/

 **09**

Reaping day comes and reaping day goes.

The birds sing sweet songs as it happens and you're not a mentor, this year, by luck of draw, but you still get the privilege of watching. They march the march that leads them to their deaths, practice not getting hunted and - predictably - are out in the bloodbath, quick and over, like you had hoped.

It's your third one. The other Victors took bets on how long it would take before you stopped caring; none of them quite predicted this short.

"Capitol propaganda," Haymitch Abernathy tells you one day out of the blue, breath smelling of vodka and eyes colder than ice, "desensitising us all to death."

/

 **09**

You unfurl your fingers in hers, crush her hands to yours and in another world, you think, you could have been beautiful together.

She traces the scar on your nose, tells you to sleep well, curls up against your stomach as you breathe, (in, out, in, out) but it isn't enough to keep you from drowning. The nightmares come, as they always do, vicious and vivid, bright against your mind and ticking against your skull. You whimper, not loud enough to wake her up, but still of a reasonable sound and roll over in your sleep.

It's a while, yet, before they sell you off; you're only fifteen and it's custom to wait at least another year. You're a dainty little thing, curves and smiles and the boys in the district used to stare. It's the men in the Capitol who do now. Men older than you, by some years, men with rough hands and leering looks, men who don't trace your scars with fleeting fingertips, men who don't care if it hurts.

You almost want to, with her.

(so it won't be with someone far older, so it'll be love, the first time, not war, so you'll whisper her name and imagine her breath instead)

She's too innocent, though. Too young, - you're the same age, you think, as you struggle not to close your eyes again - too caught up in flights of fancy and she's in love with you and you hate it, you hate it, because you love her too, more than anything.

She doesn't know what they do to Victors in the Capitol. You hope she never finds out.

("Wouldn't it be a shame," President Snow says, almost a year later, when the autumn leaves fall and the Capitol citizens grow impatient, "if your dear friend were to be reaped this year?"

You nod your head along and play the game. It's better, that way.)

/

 **10**

You get a prosthetic leg to go along with that fake smile of yours.

"It wasn't the games," you tell the doctors bluntly, "it was like that before, you know."

'Before what?' your mind whispers, because you are tired and things are blurry, your mind is a mixture of memories you'd like to forget. You'd like to break the cycle; you don't know how.

Before the reaping, of course.

They don't listen. You've got to remember your place now, you might be a Victor, (boom! boom! boom! until the cannons stopped going) but you'll never be a Capitol citizen, no, you won't! Their opinions matter more, their choices above yours, their lives far more precious.

See, you simply must remember: Capitol Citizens don't get reaped, Capitol citizens do not starve because Capitol citizens are important. Worth far more in value than the children dying in 10, more than you, more than everyone in Panem. It's a system. Don't break it.

With them, it's not survival. It's aesthetic: glittery and golden appearances; buildings decorated with blood money and the games, oh of course, the games, set with purpose to entertain and none beyond that.

You start a trend, in fact, spark a fashion amongst them, because (as the doctors apologise for) you've not got a limp, anymore, but a stiff walk, upright, straight. Can't bend your left knee, but you're not complaining, because you know what happens to Complainers in the Capitol.

Within a week, everybody's learnt it off by heart for their summer craze. Some are even having surgery done to mirror it and you want to scream at them (fucking bastards! shitstains! wankers!) but it's a system, it's a system, you know and this is the way the world works, this is the way they dehumanise their idols.

This is the way they make you into shiny, shiny dolls who do as they are told.

"Welcome to victory," Finnick Odair passes you by, grin even more fluorescent than his cocktail, "god, isn't it splendid?"

Sarcasm is laced on the tip of every victors tongue.

Maybe, you think, it's a coping mechanism, or because the Capitol has jaded them. It's too bright, too overeager, polished on the surface and scratched underneath. The colours fade, after a while.

"The worst," Johanna Mason tells you, straight-faced, beer glass empty, "is the children. Do you know how many little brats called Johanna are currently running around this stupid fucking place?"

The answer is no, no you don't. You're also not entirely sure why she's speaking to you, because she doesn't usually bestow this privilege upon many. It's normally only a scowl and a stony glare.

"No," Cashmere tells you, arm draped around yours in a seemingly flirty way (but that's how they all do it, because they're not used to being anything other than glitzy and sexual and special) eyelashes batting up at you tiredly, "it's the way their attention flits. You'll be forgotten, soon enough, I promise."

You glance at Finnick Odair (whose handsome face holds weariness and sorrow beneath the cracks) and somehow, you don't quite think that's true.

"It's - " the girl in the corner takes a deep breath (Annie, you remember, Annie Cresta, the mad one) and starts over again, fingers drumming by her side, "it's neither. It's the way they look at you," she frowns, eyes distant, trying to recall, "it's like - oh, you know! They look at you, like you're one of those animals. Animals in cages."

You stop facing Cashmere. Look at her.

"Zoo," she breathes out happily, "zoo. That's it!"

It's a system, you see and you're the thing they've come to stare at.

/

 **10**

His blood drips onto your fingers and into the cracks in your nails, little clumps of it gathering.

You're sorry, honestly, truly. Nobody wants to kill, not even the careers, probably, they were just born and bred that way. Maybe, you think, what they'd really want - what everyone would want - is everybody dead. Twenty-four tributes, no survivors. The Capitol wouldn't have their playthings, then.

His name was Cato, you remember vaguely and he was hulking and brutish, not wise enough to see the knife being plunged into his back and not corrupt enough to deserve it.

The games make a mockery out of everyone.

You have a sister, at home, only two. Young, innocent, barely old enough to know why you're gone. Ten years, that's all she has. Ten years and that's your worst nightmare; her growing up. You love her more than anything.

Enough to kill.

They were starving, before, your family, fed with scraps of bread and scavenged crumbs from friends. Making it by with countable ribs and swollen cheekbones, just enough to keep you and your sister healthy. There'll be money, now, money carved from the bones of children, tossed down the hierarchy of Panem to the winner of the games. Winner. That's you. Victor.

You didn't want to. No, or maybe you did. Come home, the voices whispered, but they didn't mention anything about blood, or knives, or the aching pit in your stomach as you watch the boy from 2 fade away.

There's the familiar blare of the hovercraft, the quiet humming you've grown used to. That's how you play the game and nobody matters in Panem, not even Snow and especially not you. Especially not him.

What a strange world! Murder isn't a crime and life isn't a value!

The cannons sound.

/

 **11**

"You killed the little girl," you say to Caesar, slow and loud and clear, "she was only twelve. You all killed her."

You didn't mean to spark a riot in 11.

The executions are long and brutal, broadcasted on an insignificant news channel with a handful of viewers. You didn't know who they were, any of them, just weary citizens of Panem, trying to start a fight they've lost a thousand or so times.

You switch it off when the blood comes onscreen and it's ironic, somehow, because look at you, Thresh! You just won the fucking Hunger Games! Murder, well, surely it comes natural? Seen all there is to see, yet? Oh, there'll be worse, trust me. Trust me!

It doesn't end, though, that's the funny thing. They're all dead now, all the people who started it, shot to pieces, but it doesn't end.

There's a shout from the crowd. A battle cry.

They drop the fire bombs at noon.

/

 **11**

Peeta dies on the third day.

Like Jesus Christ, almost, but there's no resurrection for people in the Hunger Games and there's no salvation, either.

Katniss kisses him sweetly to sleep, lays her cheek on his head and refuses to let the body go until the hovercraft is a looming threat above your heads. You hold her hand and cry as he is lifted, a final farewell, almost and wish the games didn't exist. If you cross your fingers tight enough it'll all come undone.

She didn't love him, you know, not properly, (because, you think, maybe she didn't have a chance) not passionately, like lovers do, but her face goes shockingly white, her hands shake and her voice trembles as she speaks her words.

"Let's kill Cato."

You follow her along, hop from bush to bush because you don't know quite else what to do. Katniss helped you survive, after all, but you don't want to murder, not really. Not him, definitely not him because -

There's three of you now. Killing Cato leaves two. One tribute will triumph and be rewarded. Look, see, it's even in the rules! One victor. One, one, one, one, one.

There's an uncomfortable ache in your stomach as she hacks through the plants, but you don't say anything of it. You won't kill her. You don't think you can. She would overpower you, anyway and she's your friend, your ally, your protector.

The Capitol looks on and laughs. They break out the champagne when she gets Cato in the eye with a silver arrow.

She sits on the grass and doesn't look at you. Now, you think, now is the time for you to go. Up to heaven, where the good people do. You'll see your grandmother there, Peeta too, your little sister, your cousin. All the people lost to time.

You wait for your end. She'll make it short, you know, sweet.

"You remind me of my sister," Katniss tells you, plucking the grass into her fingers and twisting it, "Prim."

You take to the ground. You've seen the broadcasts of her reapings. The waif of a girl, crying on stage before the 'I volunteer, I volunteer,' blonde, pretty, your age. Primrose Everdeen.

"I never wanted to kill," she says and her palms are bleeding red, "but be brave, Rue. Be brave. You deserve to win."

Katniss puts one hand to her mouth and swallows.

It takes only a second, almost before you've realised. You cry out, barely a squeak, fearful and confused, but the noise shatters around you like a bomb. Dead, it says, dead and winner.

You lift three fingers to your mouth slowly. You've seen it on the streets, you know it off by heart. In one swift motion, you salute the audience, say goodbye to your friend, whistle the four notes of rebellion.

(somewhere out there, Plutarch Heavensbee decides he's found his mockingjay)

/

 **12**

"Her name was Katniss Everdeen," you tell the Capitol audience, who are sobbing their hearts out, "don't forget her."

Caesar smiles, glistening and fake, wiping away eyes that hold no tears. "I'm sure we won't, Peeta. I'm sure we won't."

You accept his lies with a gracious nod, willing away the throbbing at your brain and swallowing the spit in your throat. Katniss, Katniss, Katniss. Dead. All because of you - no, no, it wasn't you, it was Cato, Cato, of course! You took no part, only accepted her death, only took her place as Victor.

A cheer goes up as you exit the stage. They play the part of broken-hearted and applaud your bravery, your honour.

Oh Peeta, don't you know?

There is no love in Panem.

"You've got to stop with all this sentimental bullcrap," Haymitch is weary, red-eyed, stinking of booze as usual. He always did like her best. "It gets useless, after a while. They stop buying into it once they start buying you."

You crack your knuckles against your palm and breathe. "Fuck off," you hiss (oh look, you're really gaining control of that temper!) "you son of a bitch."

"Oh I get it," he laughs bitterly, manically, "nobody understands you, do they, Mellark? Nobody ever lost anybody like this, did they?"

Her smile. When you close your eyes, you see it, shining, glimmering until it slips into the darkness and her voice rings out in your ears, sometimes; soft, melancholy. _Peeta, Peeta,_ she cries and you don't save her, you never save her.

"Here," he cracks open the whisky, takes a disgusted sniff and passes it to you, "it helps."

You shake your head, then change your mind and sip slowly from the bottle. It doesn't work miracles, but it tastes like something, at least.

"I know," he says, like he's seen this happen a million times, "she's..." he pauses, he doesn't want to say the words, "she was a good kid. I liked her. She had spunk."

He doesn't know, you think (because he doesn't feel the imprint of her lips still burning on his skin, doesn't want to die when he hears her name) but it makes you feel better, a tiny bit. Spunk. Right.

They put her in a white coffin with a bow on top and send her back to 12. A hundred and forty six children and counting, all from 12, all through the same ritual. Almost as if she doesn't even matter.

You go to the funeral, whisky in your back pocket and breathlessness in your heart. Stand away from her family, from her friends, because you know you'll never compare to them, you didn't know her like they did. The fact makes you jealous, selfish as you are.

They lower the coffin into the ground.

"She was a pretty girl," Finnick Odair whispers in your ear, later, when you're back in the Capitol and wasting away the days on alcohol and clients of his, "do you want revenge?"

/

 **12**

This rule has been revoked.

With shaking hands and a guilty conscience you raise the arrow. Directly at him. At his face. His face, your target. Peeta Mellark, your star-crossed lover, the boy with the bread, the boy you were supposed to fall in love with and maybe did. Just like animals. That's what Gale told you. It doesn't apply here.

Beyond the arena, two voices whisper.

Snow's says: 'let the arrow fly Miss Everdeen.'

Haymitch goes: 'don't - '

He could run. He could, he's fast (maybe more than you, almost, but not-quite) he could, he could, but he doesn't. He tread carefully, feet on the ground like a deer caught in the headlights.

"Katniss - "

It sails through the air and hits him squarely in the heart. He doesn't finish his sentence, but you mouth the word 'sorry' and choke back a sob. He said it would be you, he said, he said, he said -

You killed him. You killed Peeta Mellark.

(somewhere out there, Plutarch Heavensbee sighs to himself and crosses a name off the list)

There is no glorious revolution. They don't revolt in the streets; they didn't care about him, not at all.

Did you, Katniss? Not enough to save him, clearly.

The Hunger Games goes on. Two tributes, each year, reaped from a selection pool of children aged twelve to eighteen.

Only one can win.

/

A/N: If you think you've seen this before - you probably have! This was on my other account. I decided to re-upload it here.

Because I wrote this a while ago, there are some parts I absolutely hate, but there are also bits that I really like. Please leave your thoughts in the review section - I'm interested to know who was your favourite/least favourite perspective!

I don't own the Hunger Games and credit goes to Regina Spektor for the title


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